October 7: Two years of endless falling

A poster with a representation of Oded Lifshitz, 84, who was kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 onslaught by Hamas, is placed connected a chair, connected the time of a commemorative memorial, successful Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel, connected October 6, 2025. Lifshitz was aboriginal killed successful captivity. [Amir Cohen/Reuters]

In regions similar the Middle East, where nationalist and spiritual conflicts reign, each radical has its ain calendar of triumphs and traumas. And astir often one’s victory is the other’s defeat. October 7, 2023, will beryllium 1 of the fewer dates that will beryllium remembered not lone successful the portion but each crossed the world arsenic a time that changed everything for the worse, mounting successful question developments that we still can’t conjecture where they are headed. 

The savagery of the slaughter committed by Hamas militants that sunny Saturday was a reminder to Israel’s citizens (and they are not lone Jews) that for them each conflict is an existential struggle. Hamas’ volition was to start a war successful which it would triumph. It counted connected Iran, connected the web of Tehran’s determination subsidiaries, and connected the mobilization of the remainder of the Arab and Muslim world successful the look of what would surely beryllium a violent absorption from Israel. These mistaken assumptions person resulted successful the devastation of Gaza, successful much than 67,000 Palestinian dead, the further spread of Jewish settlements crossed the West Bank, Iran’s weakening, and the demolition of its proxy forces. The question present is however the Palestinians will retrieve from this horror. How will their society look? We cognize that large symptom feeds the forces of extremism. Amid such destruction, will there beryllium moderates with the credibility needed to pb this exhausted federation forward? 

For the Israelis, the existential daze of October 7 is compounded by the continued captivity of hostages successful Gaza, by the deaths of soldiers, by the galore consequences of their country’s longest war, and by the polarization provoked by their government’s extremist policies. Furthermore, Israel’s cruelty successful Gaza and the West Bank has blackened its representation successful the eyes of galore who supported it. The state reasserted its powerfulness of deterrence but astatine the outgo of being accused of genocide. Israeli society and the country’s standing successful the world are earnestly damaged. 

Further afield, the slaughter successful Gaza has had a terrible governmental outgo for countries which saw their support for Israel arsenic a self-evident duty. Their societies person been divided, and successful galore of them antisemitism has surged, uniting extremist groups from crossed the governmental spectrum. Support for Israel has undermined the past dregs of credibility enjoyed by the “West” and the planetary system of government, to the payment of each revisionist force. And adjacent arsenic corporate institutions are weakened, the problems that request unity are getting worse – the clime crisis, inequality, wide migration, and the adjacent pandemic. The harm that October 7 is wreaking indispensable beryllium measured astatine this level, too.